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Man with axe found outside railway Keighley station

A man has been jailed for 12 weeks, suspended for a year, after being found with an axe outside Keighley railway station.

Paul Collins, 39, was sentenced at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court yesterday, after being found guilty of possessing an offensive weapon in a public place following a trial at the same court on April 9.

Prosecutor Linda Fowler told the court that officers from West Yorkshire Police and the British Transport Police had been called to the station on the afternoon of October 16 last year, after reports of a man in a camouflage jacket brandishing some sort of “large metallic object”, and another man with some form of head injury.

She added that a member of staff from the station said they had seen the man in front of the building, holding what appeared to be a hammer or an axe above his head and “waving it around,” causing concern to members of public.

After police arrived, a 30cm axe was recovered from the back pocket of the man’s trousers.

In mitigation, solicitor Victoria Molloy told the court that Collins, of Brecks Road, Clayton, was a self-employed plasterer who had been using the axe as part of work to renovate a house in the area.

She said he admitted possessing the implement, which she said police had confirmed was covered in plaster dust, but denied wielding it above his head or using the weapon to “cause fear or threaten anybody.”

Miss Molloy also stated that Collins knew the injured man, who was said to be drunk, and was in the process of bending over to pick him up and help him into a taxi when a member of the public saw the axe in his back pocket and raised the alarm.

Alongside a custodial sentence, chairman of the bench, Ros Seton, imposed a 12-month community order with 200 hours of unpaid work and prosecution costs totalling £480.